411 Music Ten Deep 9.03.10: Top Ten U2 Songs

Posted by Andrew Moll on 09.03.2010

From "With or Without You" and "New Year's Day" to "Beautiful Day" and more, 411's Andrew Moll ranks the Top Ten U2 Songs in this week's 411 Music Ten Deep! Check out the full article to see which songs made the cut!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome, everybody, to this week's edition of 411 Music Ten Deep! Let me explain how this works quickly: I pick a topic, select the ten best options, rank them, present them to you, and then you tell me how much of an idiot I am. Sound good? Good. Then let's get on with it right now, and take a look at the feedback from last week, and the column on the Top Ten TV Theme Songs:






Top Ten U2 Songs





10. "Beautiful Day"


By the time the year 2000 came along, it appeared that U2's reign as the biggest band in the world had ended, tripped up by their move towards dance music on Pop and the overblown PopMart tour. But the band sought to reclaim their throne, with Bono explicitly saying that their new album All That You Can't Leave Behind was them reapplying for the job of biggest band in the world. Their opening salvo was "Beautiful Day," a throwback to the passionate band of the 1980s that also set the stage for the band's future.





Not a lot of bands can get away with the kind of great earnestness that drives "Beautiful Day," but for whatever reason, U2 can. A lot of that comes from Bono, who unironically puts everything he has into a song like this, and makes it work partially through sheer power of will. It's an uplifting anthem that ranks among the best that u2 has written, and it also provided the template for the decade to come. Unfortunately, it would come with diminishing returns, but at the beginning they absolutely nailed it.





9. "Bullet the Blue Sky"


"Bullet the Blue Sky" stands as probably the most incendiary U2 song, and not coincidentally, it's probably the best showcase for The Edge's underrated skills as a guitarist. The song is all about the military intervention of the United States in El Salvador in the 1980s, and it came at a time when the band obsessed with all things related to America while recording The Joshua Tree. Bono told The Edge to "put El Salvador through an amplifier," and that's exactly what he did, turning in the best guitar song in the band's catalog.





Rarely has the band sounded as confrontational and aggressive as they do hear, with Bono channeling his anger about politics and religion into the song. His spoken word verses show barely constrained contempt, and it's completely matched by what The Edge is able to get out of his guitar. This kind of urgency and bombast sounds somewhat out of place on The Joshua Tree, but to me it was a jolt of electricity that helped make the album a classic.





8. "Mysterious Ways"


After Rattle and Hum, U2 was dangerously teetering on the edge of becoming a parody of themselves, so they smartly decided to buy right into it by creating the anti-U2 and releasing the tremendous Achtung Baby, an album that sounded like nothing else the band had done before. Influenced by Euro-dance music, it began the next phase in the band's career, and one of its highlights was the European meets Eastern styled "Mysterious Ways," a sexy and funky song that skillfully showed off the new version of the band.





Again, much of the song's success is owed to the work of The Edge, and his wah-wah guitar hooks which lead the way for the entire song. (Credit also to Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton for making the transition to this new and improved U2 a seamless one.) But Bono ends up as the star of the show here, with his soulful vocals that rise and rise as the song goes along. His "It's alright it's alright, it's alright" get more passionate, and there aren't many rock singers more suited to this R&B style than Bono is.





7. "Where the Street Have No Name"


U2 had always been sort of a Christian band, or at least one that wasn't afraid to use religious imagery, and also a sweeping, epic scope in its songs. It all came to a head perfectly on The Joshua Tree, which started with the slow-building and anthemic "Where the Streets Have No Name." The song is in perpetual forward motion, with the synthesizer leading to the guitars before the rhythm section comes in. It all leads to Bono matching that idea by singing, "I want to run/I want to hide/I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside."





Much of U2's work would be a mess in the wrong hands, or with people who weren't one-hundred percent committed to its grandiosity, and that's certainly something that cannot be said about Bono. "Where the Streets Have No Name" is one of his better uplifting vocal performances as he effectively makes you want to run free yourself and escape that problems that keep people apart. It's high concept stuff for most bands, but it was part for the course for U2 and at this point in their career, right in their wheelhouse.





6. "New Year's Day"


So at this point we've hit all the different phases of U2, except for U2 Version 1.0, the Irish post-punk.new wave political band that was self-righteously political and unashamed about it. "New Year's Day" was one of the peak points for the band during this era, and it was probably the only song released in 1983 about Polish Solidarity and Lech Walesa to reach the Billboard charts. That wasn't a topic that most bands were really interested in, but at this point it was already clear U2 was a different kind of band.





"New Year's Day" is a pretty straight forward song, but it succeeds because of The Edge's incredibly sharp guitar line that slices through everything and also because, like so many other U2 songs, its passion and energy, which simply can't be ignored. The band would only grow bigger from this point on, but this song shows the young and hungry U2 at their arguable best, fighting for everything.





5. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"


Gospel music once again makes an important appearance on a U2 track with "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The entirety of The Joshua Tree is a trip through all the things that make America what it is, and how that can be equated to a spiritual journey; that idea can be condensed into this great anthem, which manages to be uplifting while still maintaining some doubt to it.





The phrase "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for" is something that everybody should be able to relate to, and it hearkens back to some of the best R&B and soul music of the past. The band at its best during the 1980s was always a glorified soul/gospel band, and it was something that they fully embraced on this song, and it helped make it something pretty special. Bono's search for personal spirituality and fulfillment was moving and universal, and made this song have such a lasting impact.





4. "Sunday Bloody Sunday"


By brining the problems of Northern Ireland to the world, U2 was at their most strident and important, and also near their peak for the first part of their career. Larry Mullen sets the tone for the entire song with his insistent, no frills, militaristic beat never wavering. Allmusic smartly pointed out how it helps the song have a "take-no-prisoners" feel to it, and that manages to describe the song perfectly; there's no way the band is going to let you avoid the topic of the song, and you're just going to have to confront it directly.





Even though "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was about the issues of Northern Ireland, specifically the Bloody Sunday massacre, the song still stands as a tremendous anti-war song, although it stands out because it's incredibly visceral. It shows that sometimes the fight back against violence and war needs to be just as powerful and aggressive; U2 wasn't a band to just sit back and let these sorts of things happen without recourse, and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is their best statement of the sort. "How long must we sing this song?" is a lyrics and idea that will always be, unfortunately, relevant.





3. "Pride (In the Name of Love)"


At the time of its release, Bono said that "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was the best song the band had written, and at that point in their career, he was certainly correct about that. The Unforgettable Fire showed that U2 wasn't always going to have to be the hell-on-earth band they were, but could be more sincere and subtle, and "Pride" was the best of that bunch.





This song also shows the first sense of the band's infatuation, and in this case, specifically with Martin Luther King, Jr. They use that inspiration to make a statement song that is passionate without being angry or off-putting; it was a formula that allowed U2 to become the biggest band in the world since they could get away with being preachy without turning people off. It's a song that rises and rises, thanks to The Edge's ringing guitar riff and also Bono's soaring vocals, which capture the song's message as well as any lyrics could.





2. "With or Without You"


"With or Without You" isn't the love song that people believe it to be, or at least not in some traditional way, but that doesn't mean it isn't emotional or heart-wrenching. Where the rest of The Joshua Tree was looking outwardly to the rest of the world and America and how it relates to us, "With or Without You" was intensely personal, a song about Bono struggling with the dual roles of being both a husband and a touring musician. His pained "I can't live, with or without you" manages to tell the whole story right there.





The soul searching that goes on in this song fits extremely well with the rest of the songs on the album, but it's set apart by those personal problems. Bono was trying to find himself on this song not in the context of America, but on his own and with his family. It was a different kind of spiritual journey, but an equally important one, and the result was an epic song that still hits you in the gut each time you hear it.





1. "One"


There was really no debate when it came to deciding the number one choice for this list; "One" is U2's greatest achievement, the highlight of their best album, and one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Where much of the work surrounding Achtung Baby was drenched in irony and even satire, "One" was triumphantly earnest and emotional; it's a quality that Bono knows well and does better than probably anybody, and his passionate delivery of lyrics like "Love is a temple, love the highest law" make them seem like rules to live by.






That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.